What's the WORST steel to sharpen?

The paper and binder supply company we use sent a box of Gerber Air Ranger Chinese knock-offs with their logo screen printed on 'em. Look like an OK knife - lock up pretty well and visually not bad overall. A couple of coworkers have brought me these to sharpen, at work I generally just have my Norton Econo stone. These blades respond OK off the coarse side, can be coaxed to an respectable edge off the fine side, but cannot be taken finer than that, and won't hold an edge well at any finish. I stop at the coarse side now and strop on plain paper. "Come on back an'time!"

Aside from that I don't have too much trouble unless (like the above example) its trying to get a finish on a particular steel that it just doesn't care for. Some steels will not take a coarse edge and some won't hold a fine edge. Most of my troubles arise from using an abrasive that isn't a good fit.
 
For me it's not so much a particular alloy that gets my blood pressure up, but poor geometry. High hardness/high carbide volume coupled with a thick edge just plain sucks. Luckily, I seldom work on other people's knives any more, so that's not much of a problem.
 
james terrio said:
For me it's not so much a particular alloy that gets my blood pressure up, but poor geometry. High hardness/high carbide volume coupled with a thick edge just plain sucks. Luckily, I seldom work on other people's knives any more, so that's not much of a problem.
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That's a good point, thick edges are worse for me than wear resistant alloys. It seems a lot of companies worry so much about blade robustness that they forget to make their blades good at actually cutting things :p
 
Boker magnum's. Specifically the Bulldog. It was the only one of their magnum line I bought (or ever will buy for that matter). I don't remember the steel but it was just TERRIBLE to sharpen. I never even got it to hair shaving sharp. Preparedmind101 (member here C_Tanner) has a video on it and also comments on how bad it is to sharpen.
 
ALLHSS said:
1095

Please don't attack me... I just think it is miserable to sharpen. Rounds so easily or something, Idk.
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On that note, 1095 varies all over the place, depending on the quality of the heat treatment; therefore depends on who made the blade. This is generally true of all blade steels anyway, but the differences I've noticed with 1095 have been more obvious. In the same breath, I could identify 1095 as my all-time favorite (Schrade USA), and also one of the the worst I've seen (makers to remain unnamed). That 'rounding' you notice is prevalent in the lousy stuff. Schrade's 1095 in their older USA blades, to me, has been the antithesis of that. All the best attributes of great edge-holding, taking a razor edge (literally) and incredibly easy to get it there and maintain it as such.


David
 
Many people see 1095 as a "starter" steel in knifemaking and its NOT. Its a hypereutectoid steel and dosnt respond that well to homemade heat treatments. It requires a soak and a very,very fast quench.
I also add that I have an old schrade sharpfinger and its a fine knife..Its dressed and skinned more than a few truckloads of critters.
 
Mystery steel, it's kind of like opening a box of chocolate you ain't never know what kind of edge you gonna get.
 
1095 because it's so inconsistent. Schrade 1095 is a dream to sharpen, while GEC and Schatt & Morgan make me upset.
 
For me it is s35vn and vg10 by shun (kai).

S35vn gets very sharp but dulls very quick.
Vg10 by shun also gets sharp, but chips on nearly everything.
 
You can always employ a harder abrasive material; not much harder than diamond or boron nitride. I say it's any steel with a poor heat treat history along with geometry as James mentioned.
 
S30V by a mile. IMO, this steel is lousy, I have yet to use a knife in this steel that holds an edge, and can be sharpened well. 1095 can be bad if it's soft. Take it up to 65 HRC and it's a completely different steel for the better.

No problem with most any steel above 62HRC or so. The softer steels tend to burr horribly, but the harder steels don't.
 
I get very frustrated with S60V and S110v. I can get a good work edge but anything sharper finished to a high polish tests my patience pretty badly, to the point I just give up.
 
bpeezer said:
It seems a lot of companies worry so much about blade robustness that they forget to make their blades good at actually cutting things :p
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I'm convinced that you're right, and that's unfortunate because we're blessed with alloys and HT protocols that allow both excellent cutting and high durability. There are many examples of production knives that cut quite well, of course... and a number of handmade/midtech/semi-custom knives that are just awful. By the same token there are many knives that are simply not meant to be laser-like cutters, and that's fine too.

I think it's a service to customers to include thickness behind the edge bevel in the usual list of stats like length, stock thickness and weight. I know lots of folks here don't mind - even seem to enjoy - regrinding their edges to suit them, but most people have no interest in dropping money on a tool that's not ready to perform.
 
Kentucky said:
Many people see 1095 as a "starter" steel in knifemaking and its NOT. Its a hypereutectoid steel and dosnt respond that well to homemade heat treatments. It requires a soak and a very,very fast quench.
I also add that I have an old schrade sharpfinger and its a fine knife..Its dressed and skinned more than a few truckloads of critters.
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+1 This.

People should stop describes 1095 as a cheap beginner steel. It actually harder to do a proper heat treat than many many stainless...
 
james terrio said:
For me it's not so much a particular alloy that gets my blood pressure up, but poor geometry. High hardness/high carbide volume coupled with a thick edge just plain sucks. Luckily, I seldom work on other people's knives any more, so that's not much of a problem.
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This was what I was thinking the whole time, and is why I didn't initially comment.

About 80% of the production knives I have will take re profiling to get a nice edge, and some of them are just a pain. I have a Volt II in 8cr13mov that has one side <20, and one side >20, and it ha pissed me off tonight trying to reprofile (I thought it would be easy). I spent forever trying to fix the screwed up sharpening job Cold Steel put on my San Mai SRK last week, and barely got anywhere with it. I usually end up putting a micro bevel on them, and that just adds another facet to when I do get around to re-profiling them.

I had a really hard time getting my little brother's Bear Grylls survival fixed blade sharp as well. I don't know what steel it was, it apexed easy enough but just never got very sharp.
 
sodak said:
S30V by a mile. IMO, this steel is lousy, I have yet to use a knife in this steel that holds an edge, and can be sharpened well. 1095 can be bad if it's soft. Take it up to 65 HRC and it's a completely different steel for the better.

No problem with most any steel above 62HRC or so. The softer steels tend to burr horribly, but the harder steels don't.
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Not to sound contrary (that never starts well), but I have had little if any problem out of my PM2's and Millies with S30V. Was it a particular brand, or knife that gave you the run? Just curious man. Thanks
 
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